Ahoy Sailors…
“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe…”
‘The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, the bubbling leaps with light and heat– what trances of torments does the man endure who is consumed with one unachieved and revengeful desire.’ ⊕ ‘The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion; it is the Living infinite.’ Ω ‘Tis the terror of the tempest. On every side, more horribly the multitudinous streams of Ocean’s mountainous waste to mutual war. Death’s blue vault without escape…’ ℘ ‘The amorous sea. The abyssal sea. And all the kingdoms made up of its Eternity…’
We want to celebrate the wide wide expanse of the seas–literary and real. Their misery. Their mystery. Their gothic nature. The cruelty and beauty of such a wonder cannot be extricated– just like humanity. We want to celebrate all that is gained once you leave land–and also, all that is lost. Adventure. Revenge. Bloodlust and Bloodslake. All the ways you want to love, and all the ways you never will. The weapons you wield and the clumsiness of your own hands cannot be separated—
Reader, who are you? Who do you really want to be?
Life’s a beach. The seas are rough and the monsters are all you: in hurt, there is opportunity.
At West of Canon press, we are committed to a plurality of experiences which are not constrained by race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, mental health, literacy, wealth, disability, language, ethnicity, religion, age, creed, or even humanity. We reject performativity and the anthropocentric instincts of categorization and taxonomy. We reject violence, including the violence of imposing one’s own taxonomies and world views onto others. We reject being comprehensible or comprehensive. We reject being symbolized. We reject any enforced appropriation of ‘community,’ particularly if its lodestone is that of commerce, public evaluation of the private, and pointless competition. In turn, we encourage all to engage as denizens of the Earth and sea, without borders and without rank. There is nothing that separates us from the beasts, and nothing truly which separates us from each other.
Check out our scrivening spot, The Crow’s Nest, the premier place to read about your favorite sea monsters, salty sailor sonnets, meditations on why octopuses are like That, practical guides to sailor knots, historical digressions on trans and disabled pirates, haunted ship graveyard, Herman Melville’s commas, and more.
ALL HANDS ON DECK (inclusive of all those tentacles)
The Shipyard is a place to find new theatre and musical projects. It holds vessels of all shapes and sizes along the rolling coastal tides. Here aboard the various decks you will find all different types of theatre and music being performed.
We love a good sea shanty! We hope the krakens do too.
Come explore The Open Seas with us, a vast region of new adventures just waiting for you. Here is where you can find our regularly updated and new writing projects
